Oh My...

Have I really not written anything here since July!?!?!?!?

Well, the most important thing since then has been that baby Henna Orion arrived on December 2nd!!! I will write out a birth story with pictures a little later.

I guess my New Year's Resolution will be to keep up on the blog more. We are thinking of updating our phone service to the data package and getting smart phones. I imagine if that's the case, I will be posting a ton more photos.

In the meantime, know that I haven't forgotten about the blog, but that life just got in the way of letting me share our adventures...

I'm a slacker...

I have no idea how to post pictures myself, therefore I depend upon Luke, and he has been crazy busy with weddings this summer, that it just hasn't happened. Maybe this weekend I will actually let him teach me, that way I can put up vacation pictures from our trip to Florida for his cousin's wedding.

The girls have been doing great in karate, and have their yellow belt already! Lexi has learned a few versions of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" on the piano, and we need to go buy her a couple note reading books so she can start learning to read music.

Avery is getting bigger by the minute and starting to finally talk a little bit. The biggest word she says...."Spongebob" :)

I'm doing pretty well. Just turned 27, and I'm about 21-22 weeks along with baby girl number 4! I don't have to go back to work until next week, and we just bought an air conditioner for the living room, so I am hoping to work on organizing all the stuff that came out of the bedrooms. I'm sure I have a lot of yardsale stuff, so I should probably have another yardsale soon. We've gotta come up with some money to pay some things off so we can afford to take on a car payment, since we will need to upgrade when the new baby comes...

Extracurricular Activities

We've gotten to the age group that Lexi and Lilly are big enough to start doing some things... Since Lexi just turned 5, we started piano lessons with a lady through the Wayne Center for the Arts. We go on Wednesday afternoons to her home for a half hour lesson. We have had one so far, and Lexi did really well. We went to Larry's and got her a book and CD and she has been practicing at home and doing pretty good. Lilly may even pick a little bit up before she turns 5 and can start.

We also started karate and Tracy's Studio here in town. The owner is awesome, and the girls enjoy it a lot. Ages start at 4, and since Lilly will be 4 next month, they let her start so it's something they can do together. We go Tuesday evenings for the group lesson, which is them and 4 boys, and then we go on Wednesday mornings for their private lesson. They do really well, and we have a list of stuff they get to do for their first belt, a yellow belt. They should have their uniforms in a few weeks. So exciting!!

Cat Bites!!

So, we've spent some time at Dad's lately, due to a neighbour unexpectedly falling ill and passing away. He has a grumpy old black cat named Sisko (after the captain on Star Trek Deep Space Nine, not that Thong Song guy that Chelsea always thinks of!!) Anyway, we think he was in the bathtub drinking water and Lilly tried to pet him, and of course he bit her. She has one little hole in her arm right above her left wrist. This happened Tuesday, and we've been treating it with peroxide and neosporin, but yesterday we called the pediatrician because it turned red and puffy. They saw her yesterday and did an antibiotic by injection. She had to get one in each leg, and he said that it would hurt really bad, causing burning and tingling and that she wouldn't be able to walk hardly. Poor Lilly had never been so scared. Just last month she saw Lexi get a shot, and even though Lexi did awesome, Lilly has been talking about shots and that she doesn't want one, so yesterday was tough. I ended up being an hour and a half late to work since the appointment was so late in the day and we had to wait around to make sure she didn't have a reaction to the shots.

She goes back today at 2:45. The redness has gone down, so she probably won't need another round of shots, just an oral antibiotic from here!

Just an FYI, the pediatrician said as far as animal bites go. If it's a cat, always bring them in, because their teeth are so long that the bite goes deep enough that oxygen can't get to the wound to heal it. A dog bite on the other hand, unless it requires stitches, would be just fine to treat at home, and the risk of infection is low...

A birthday and more kitchen destruction

We had a friend turn 4 last week, and they had his party at a McDonald's with a play place. I have to say, it gives me a little bit of anxiety to let them play there. We don't do McDonald's except when we meet Nana and Papaw, and that one doesn't have toys. It's just a sticky, icky place. The girls had a blast though!!


The kitchen is still in progress. I am hoping to send Luke to Lowe's today to pick up two cabinets, and then we can get those up, and the rest of the tile board that goes behind the countertop, and then hopefully we can get mud on the walls so we can paint the rest of it sometime this month!!

Kitchen Re-Modeling

We had finally put up drywall in the pantry before Lexi's party, and now it's time to finish it up. I always thought the kitchen would be last on the list of house re-models, but I believe it is the reason we eat out more than we should, and eat unhealthier meals. We need a good space to prepare food, and the old kitchen didn't offer that to us. Since we are cash flowing the project, we won't have everything we need to finish it this weekend(like two cabinets and the OTR Microwave), but we will have the soffet done, paint on the walls, shelving in the pantry, and the tile board up. It will be enough that the groceries will fit on the shelves, and we can easily take inventory of what we have. The floor will also stay unfinished, but really, I don't care about that floor anyway. We will get there one day!

Pediatrician Appointments...

Lexi had her 5 year checkup this week, and Avery had her 15 month checkup. Lexi did great with her vision and hearing tests and she was 37.5 pounds and 43 inches tall. Avery was a half ounce shy of 24 pounds and 30 3/4 inches tall. They are both doing great, but we did get a referral to see a podiatrist for Avery. It took her longer to start walking because she was really wobbly. The pediatrician was ready to give us a big speech on how kids normally are just establishing a gate at 15 months, and that we should give it some time, until he watched her walk. He said we are in the 1% that should go and see a specialist at this age. He labeled her as severely flat footed, so on the 25th, we go and see the podiatrist at The Cleveland Clinic to see if we need to move forward with some kind of corrective shoe or cast.

I figured, having 3 kids, that one of the would have foot problems, since I did, and it looks like Avery is the winner. He said Lexi is a bit flat footed as well, but he said a lot of kids are until they are older and the arch develops, although I have no doubt that all three of them will stay flat footed to some degree for the rest of their lives.

So, now we play the waiting game until the 25th...